Agricultural law firm reports influx of enquiries from worried farmers following APR reforms
One of the area’s leading specialist Agriculture and Estates law firms has received an influx of enquiries from worried farmers following the government’s announcement of APR reforms on commercial family farms.
Senior Partner, Richard Lloyd, who also heads up the Property department at GHP Legal, said his firm has acted for generations of the same farming families across Shropshire and Mid and North Wales for more than 50 years and he has rarely seen clients in such a state of panic.
“These days the majority of farms earn insufficient money to pay the potential Inheritance Tax bill this government move threatens”, he said,
“And many believe they will potentially have to sell off some of their land or business to pay it, with the result that the farm business will become unviable.
“Currently the NFU is in consultation with economists in a bid to prove the Treasury’s assumption that only 27 per cent of farms will be affected is based on incorrect data.
"The NFU believes a more accurate view is that around 75 per cent of commercial family farms will be above the £1 million threshold.
“According to NFU research, even if we consider an optimistic £2m threshold before the tax takes effect, for many medium-sized farms inheritance tax bills spread over 10 years would wipe out the majority of their returns, while for many large farms it would reduce returns by a half.
"At the £1m threshold, the tax bill would significantly exceed the average returns of some medium-sized farms and absorb most of a large farm’s earnings.
“During the many years that GHP Legal has provided legal services to the farming community in our region we have seen massive changes in the industry. At every turn we have helped farmers be creative and diversify to overcome all manner of obstacles and still maintain a viable and profitable business to hand down to the next generation. This new policy, however, presents a different type of challenge.
“Whilst we all hope the NFU may have some success in persuading the government to reconsider the potentially disastrous impact their new policy will have on the farming community, and on the future of agriculture in England and Wales, farmers should start now to look at ways of limiting the damage should it continue to go ahead.”
